The Results, Part I

Spring semester: day sixty-six

I found out last night -- in the interim between showering and messing with the laundry and pipes -- that all of the MFAs received their comps results yesterday afternoon via letters in their mailboxes. My buddy Jay even received a "high pass," which is basically the best marks one can get on the comps. I'm proud of him, especially since he thought he did "just okay" or something along those lines.

I will get my own results this morning, presumably, in about 90 minutes once I'm on campus. Parker is supposed to find out his own results this week as well, from his first question of the MA comps he took on Friday.

I'm nervous and my allergies are killing me. I had to take a sleeping pill last night in order to force myself to sleep through the night, as I am forced to be on campus all day today for conferences -- 8AM through 2:40, one after another, back-to-back to back with no real breaks whatsoever. As you may have guessed, I'm not particularly looking forward to this. My allergies are killing me because in the past twelve hours, the temperature has gone from 70 to 36 degrees, and it's currently raining/sleeting/wet-snowing with 25-35mph winds. The weather forecast was right, apparently, and when it changes that rapidly, it destroys my allergies -- runny nose, watery eyes, awful congestion, the works. I'm going to try to leave a little early in order to drive a bit more slowly if necessary. The roads just look wet and it's above freezing here, and the ground sure as hell isn't frozen, but people drive like idiots in shitty weather, and the last thing I want to do is get into an accident three weeks before graduation.

The laundry/towels are done and have run their course in the dryer, but I have not yet drained the tub. I want to wait until I get home this afternoon to do so, as if I wait that long then I can be assured that everything has been drained out of the system and draining the tub shouldn't be a problem. The washer didn't give me any more issues last night when I let the rest of the drain/spin cycle run, which tells me that my theories of the pipes being mostly clear or being able to take about 30 gallons or so of water at one time before they back up is roughly correct -- the clog is either mostly dissolved/broken up or it's been pushed much further down the pipe from where it was before, but either way, it seems to be much better than before. Not worried about it for the moment, really.

I plan to leave the house in about fifteen minutes; this is going to be a stressful day for a number of reasons, the least of which are my travels to school and back in the shitty weather. As mentioned, I have conferences all day today. I also have them for the same length of time on Thursday, though with less students (most of them are coming in today). No, most of the stress is attributed to that letter sitting in my mailbox on campus right now, the one that says I'll either get to graduate next month or I won't. It's been so long since comps that I'd almost forgotten that I took them, and I've certainly forgotten most of the vast amount of information I read and studied to take them. I do, ironically, remember most of what my essays for those comps entailed, however.

For now, though, I must dress in layers and traverse the roads to get to campus. The heater in the Monte Carlo is less than ideal and takes a bit to warm up, so I'll be wearing two shirts, two pairs of pants, gloves, a coat, and thick shoes. Oy.